October 24, 2012

Fuck The Facts - Die Miserable - Misery

Canadian grindcore icons Fuck the Facts remain the sonic definition of iconoclasts. Their latest full-length, Die Miserable, is a veritable sonic laboratory. After well over a decade aggressively refusing to be confined to a single genre, they approach the complete demolishing of expectations and predictability with a grace and sophistication that would be comfortable were it not so weird. Individual moments on this album shine out, twisted, writhing and brilliant. The throbbing distortion in the titular "Die Miserable" could be mistaken for the sound of time bending. Next, "A Coward's Existence" opens with a mechanical squeal that sounds eerily organic, like a whale song rendered by guitar strings. Everything is broken, squeezed, torqued and under pressure, and the bent sound that's produced is at once distressing and completely engrossing.

Coinciding with Die Miserable, Fuck the Facts are self-releasing an EP entitled Misery. This release takes a completely different approach to recording and songwriting, which shouldn't be surprising, considering the band. The production is much rawer, and the songs are shorter, focussed blasts of hot aggression. Guitarist and founding member Topon Das has said that Misery is composed of songs that didn't make the cut for the full-length, but the EP doesn't feel like a collection of leftovers. The approach is more relaxed ― less surgical precision in these experiments lead to more volatile results. On Die Miserable, Fuck the Facts play the role of mad scientists. On Misery, they become the monsters tearing the lab apart.